"Gawker" urges court to drop Quentin Tarantino lawsuit

The website - which stands accused of copyright infringement by linking to a leaked script of the director's upcoming cowboy film, which he has since been forced to scrap - now claims the lawsuit should be dismissed because Tarantino hasn't cited actual copyright infringement, only ''contributory'' factors.

According to Variety.com, they said in a motion to dismiss filed in US District Court in Los Angeles on Monday (10.03.14) that the lawsuit ''does no more than raise the possibility that some member of the public who accessed plaintiff's script using Gawker's link subsequently violated Tarantino's rights by committing an infringement.

''Because plaintiff did not allege any facts showing that an infringing act actually was undertaken by a third party - merely accessing the script by clicking on the link is legally insufficient - plaintiff did not state a claim for contributory infringement.''

Gawker also claims that linking to an online version of the script was fair us because it hadn't ''reproduced'' the material.

They said: ''Gawker made minimal use of the script - it reproduced no part of it but merely linked to another publication. Gawker's use was, at most, incidentally commercial and did not usurp the primary market for and purpose of the script: to make a movie.''

The Oscar-winning 'Django Unchained' director decided to pull the plug on the movie and is demanding at least $1 million in damages for Gawker's actions.

He said he had only given the script for 'The Hateful Eight' to six people and believes one of them must have let their agent see it, who subsequently sent it on.

District Judge John Walter has scheduled a hearing in the case for April 14.